The Head That Wears the Crown
by Nightfoot
Summary: Being the commandant means sometimes having to make difficult decisions. Not everyone can be saved, but this is the first time Yuri and Flynn are forced to truly confront what this might mean.


**The Head that Wears the Crown**

Outside Zaphias, the ground was more red than green. Human and monster bodies alike littered the field. The only movement was from tattered flags sticking out of the ground, mocking the dead with their triumphant flapping.

Karol gaped at the scene. "What… what happened here?"

"Monster attack, most likely," Judith said.

Yuri didn't say anything, his eyes locked on the corpses with a glower that could pierce concrete. The smell was almost worse than the sight. He could close his eyes to escape the image of hundreds of knights ripped open by claws like knives, but even covering his face with his sleeve couldn't block out the nauseating aroma of blood and decaying corpses.

"What should we do?" Karol asked with a pale face.

They'd come back to Zaphias to meet a client for a guild mission, and had been in high spirits for the morning trip. Yuri was looking forward to seeing his friends in the lower quarter again and they were all planning to stop at the castle to visit Estelle. It had been several years since their journey, but they still made sure to visit each other regularly. The sun was high but not too hot, and it had seemed like a perfect day. That is, until they got close enough to see the massacre just outside of town.

"I'm going to find someone who knows what happened," Yuri said, and strode to the city entrance without a second glance.

Karol, Judith, and Repede followed close behind him, Karol pointedly looking anywhere but at the ground and the bodies they had to step around. The closer they got to the city walls, the more the proportion of knight bodies to monsters skewed toward knights. At the entrance to the city, dead bodies that had been recovered lay in rows, while knights worked to identify and clean them up as well as they could.

"Hey," Yuri said, grabbing a knight with a clipboard by his shoulder. "What the hell happened here?"

The knight spun around and stared at him with tired eyes. "I'm busy."

"I see that. Can you just tell me what happened? I live here," he appealed.

The knight sighed in frustration. "There was a monster attack, obviously."

"Why did they attack?" Karol asked, risking looking over his shoulder at all the dead bodies. "Monsters wouldn't usually attack a big city like this."

"A lightning storm last week set off a fire in the woods to the south. The monsters were driven out of their homes and starving, so they attacked the nearest human settlement. We were trapped inside the city for three days with a monster horde prowling outside."

Yuri swallowed heavily, wishing he had been here. He didn't know what he might have been able to do against a small army of monsters, but he felt guilty for sitting comfortably in Dahngrest while his home was under attack. He hadn't even known it was happening.

"How did you manage to fight them off?" Judith asked.

The knight's face tightened and his eyes fell to his clipboard. "The Fifty-Fourth Battalion was sent to confront them head-on. Their attack lured all the monsters around the city to this spot, which allowed the rest of the knights to get out of the city and strike the horde from the rear and flanks."

For a second, Yuri's vision swam, but it might have been because a breeze brought a fresh whiff of decomposing corpses to his nose. "And the Fifty-Fourth Battalion? What happened to them?"

The knight shuffled some papers on his clipboard. "There was an eighty percent casualty rate."

"Of course there was!" Anger flared in his chest. "What the hell did you think would happen if you sent one battalion head-on against a whole swarm of monsters?!"

The knight took a step back and used his clipboard as a shield. "Look, mister, I'm not the one who gave the orders!"

Judith put her hand on Yuri's shoulder to try to calm him down. Yuri glanced at her apologetically and reined his fury. Getting angry wouldn't make things better, but damn it all, hundreds of people were dead in what had basically been a suicide mission.

"Yeah, alright," he grumbled. "Who was it, then? Which captain thought this would be a great idea?" As soon as he found out, he was going to have _words_ with that captain, and by 'words' he really meant 'shouts, and possibly fists'. No one in their right mind would think sending a lone battalion to lure the monsters to one spot could end in anything other than countless deaths. It was this kind of wanton disregard for the lives of common people, both civilians and ordinary knights themselves, that noble commanders displayed that he and Flynn had been so desperate to change.

"Captain?" the knight asked, frowning.

"Yeah," Yuri said. "Who was it? Do you know if Flynn has chewed him out yet? If not, I want to be there."

The knight shook his head. "It wasn't a captain. These orders came straight from the commandant himself."

Yuri stared at the knight, peripherally aware that Judith and Karol had shot him nervous looks. _"What."_

The knight nodded. "Commandant Flynn issued the order yesterday morning."

There had to be a mistake. _Flynn_ ordered this? He would have known hardly anyone from the battalion he sent would survive. What the hell was he thinking? Awful fears about Flynn succumbing to the same corruptive power as Alexei danced around his head, but he pushed those aside. There had to be a rational explanation for this, and he wouldn't cast judgment on Flynn until he got to the bottom of this. It had better be a damn good explanation, though.

Once they entered the city and crossed the lower quarter, Yuri dug his keys out of his bag and tossed them to Karol, who caught them easily. "You guys go ahead to my place. I need to talk to Flynn." He hadn't spoken a word since they left the knight in the field, but they'd been together long enough that Judith and Karol hadn't needed to ask about his stormy silence.

"Will you be alright going alone?" Judith asked.

Yuri nodded. "Yeah. We just need to have a little talk. I'll see you guys later."

Having left them behind, Yuri made his way to the castle on his own. He had hoped that during the walk he'd think of some reasonable explanation for what Flynn had done, but nothing came to him. All he could think of was that perhaps Flynn had been ill and wasn't thinking straight when he'd issued the order. He'd heard the saying that power corrupts, but he'd never thought it would apply to Flynn. It was lucky he'd brought his sword, because he had a feeling he was going to need to knock some sense into Flynn the way they always worked out their arguments.

The knights let him into the castle without any fuss, and he made his way directly to Flynn's office. Without even bothering to knock, Yuri slammed the door open and stormed inside, ready to give Flynn a piece of his mind. He stopped in the doorway when he saw the scene in the office.

He had visited Flynn countless times, and when he entered the office, the view was always the same: Flynn sitting at his desk in front of tall windows, so busy at work he didn't look up to greet Yuri and berate him for not knocking. Today, the scene was rather different.

The first thing he noticed was how dark it was. Heavy blue curtains covered the windows, and none of the lamps had been lit. Flynn slumped with his forehead resting on the desk, and the smell of alcohol lingered in the air. Yuri was still angry, but now his fury was joined by concern. He slammed the door shut, and Flynn pulled his hands to his ears to block the noise. At least that meant he was awake.

Yuri marched across the room and stood over the desk. "What the hell is going on, Flynn?"

"Hey, Yuri," Flynn mumbled, finally raising his head. The slivers of light that broke through the curtains cast strong shadows on his face, emphasizing the bags under his eyes. He hadn't shaved this morning, and if his tousled hair, rumbled clothes, and hollow eyes were any indication, he hadn't slept last night, either. "I was wondering when you'd show up."

"I don't need to tell you what I'm here about, do I?" Yuri dropped into the seat across the desk. "Do you mind telling me…" his eyes caught an empty bottle on the desk. He frowned, grabbed it, and then sniffed it because it couldn't possibly be what the label indicated. "What the hell, Flynn? Were you drinking whiskey?"

"Yeah," he muttered, resting his face in his hand.

He set the bottle on the desk, careful to avoid the papers strewn haphazardly across it. This was also unusual, since Flynn usually kept his desk tidy. "Since when do you drink?"

"It felt appropriate last night."

"Are you hungover?"

Flynn nodded slowly. "A little. Was worse this morning."

Yuri's fury lowered. It was obvious that at the very least, Flynn already knew he'd done something terrible. "Do you want to explain to me what happened? I saw all those bodies, Flynn. I heard what you did to the Fifty-Fourth Battalion."

Flynn winced at the mentioned of the battalion.

"You couldn't have possibly thought sending them out there would result in anything but a massacre."

Flynn couldn't meet his eyes and stared at his desk. "I know," he whispered. "You don't have to tell me."

"If you know, then what the hell were you thinking?!"

"It was the only thing I could think of. The monsters weren't going anywhere and they had the whole city surrounded. Picking them off with archers from the walls wasn't going anywhere. Anyone sent out to fight on the field would have faced a head-on assault. Using one battalion as a diversion was the only way to gain the upper hand."

"The ends justify the means? Is that really the argument you're going with?"

"No." He wearily shook his head. "I'm not trying to justify what I did, just explain."

"Have you even been down there? Do you have any idea how many died?"

"Three hundred sixty-eight." He gestured at the papers covering his desk. "I'm in the process of writing to their families."

Yuri picked up one of the papers and glanced over the short letter.

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Sherman,_

_It is with sincere regret that I must inform you that your son, Private Henry Sherman of the Fifty-Fourth Battalion, was killed in action defending Zaphias. His death saved the lives of countless civilians. I am deeply sorry for your loss._

_Commandant Flynn Scifo_.

Only the signature at the bottom was actually in Flynn's handwriting. Yuri grabbed another one and read:

_Dear Mrs. Muller,_

_It is with sincere regret that I must inform you that your husband, Corporal Michael Muller of the Fifty-Fourth Battalion, was killed in action defending Zaphias. His death saved the lives of countless civilians. I am deeply sorry for your loss._

_Commandant Flynn Scifo_.

Yuri dropped the letter and looked up. "Are they all the same?"

"There's too many to personalize them all. The survivors of the battalion offered to write the letters for me to sign." Flynn rubbed his forehead and then closed his eyes. "I wish I could personalize them. I wish I could thank each and every one of them personally for their sacrifice. You have every right to hate me for what I did, Yuri, but believe me when I say there's no way you hate me more than I hate myself. Ever since the battle I've racked my mind to try to think of any other way to have gotten rid of the monsters. At the same time, I desperately don't want to think of something now, when it's too late, because then I'll just hate myself more for not thinking of it earlier."

"Why did you have to face them?" Yuri struggled to remain angry in the face of Flynn's overwhelming misery. "They're just monsters, not a dedicated enemy force. They would have given up eventually."

"Yes, but how long? Do you have any idea what an extended siege means? When food shortages happen, it would be the people of the lower quarter who suffer the most. Do you think I should have condemned our people to starve to death?"

Yuri glared at his knees. "No." He wanted to be angry, but the truth was, he couldn't think of anything, either. It wasn't his job to think of these things, though. Flynn was supposed to be the best commandant the empire had ever had. He was supposed to lead the empire in a new direction, but here he was using his own knights as bait. It was something Yuri would have expected from Alexei. Sure Flynn felt awful about it, but that didn't make the soldiers any less dead.

"After the battle," Flynn mumbled into his hand, "half the people I talked to praised me for making such difficult but necessary decisions, and the other half could barely look at me. The ones who praised me were mostly nobles. Their approval disgusts me."

Yuri didn't know what to say. There wasn't any point in yelling at Flynn, because Flynn had already done a spectacular job of beating himself up. Flynn didn't need to be told that he'd done something awful, but Yuri wasn't even sure now if what he'd done really was unforgivable. As the leader of the entirely military, it was inevitable that Flynn would be placed in an unwinnable situation and forced to choose which lives to sacrifice. They had been stupid to think that Flynn becoming the commandant would mean an instant age of sunshine and rainbows, or that anyone in a position of such extreme power would be able to avoid difficult calls forever.

"And now I hate myself for being so miserable," Flynn said. "What right do I have to feel sorry for myself when three hundred sixty-eight families lost a loved one because of me?"

"I think you need to let it out. Take the day to feel sorry for yourself and then you can move on and work toward a future where decisions like this don't have to be made."

"I'm not sure if such a future exists. There will always be monsters in the world. There will always be enemies of the empire and it would be naïve to think this is the last time I'll be forced to choose between two terrible options. Do you think this is how Alexei started?"

Yuri narrowed his eyes in concern. "Alexei? What do you mean?"

"He used to be idealistic like me. Maybe rather than being corrupted by power, he was actually worn out by endless choices between equally bad options until choosing to do awful things for the nominal greater good became natural to him. He saw raising Zaude and trying to control its power as a necessary evil to save the empire just as I saw sacrificing the Fifty-Fourth Battalion as a necessary evil to save Zaphias. Damn... I always knew that power corrupts, but I was arrogant and assumed I would be the exception."

"That's not true. You're better than that, Flynn."

"No, I'm not. I'm just another idealistic idiot who thought I could change the world without getting my hands dirty."

Yuri's plan to come up here and yell at Flynn had turned into struggling to find a way to console him. He wanted to be angry about the dead knights, but it was obvious Flynn hadn't wanted to make that choice. Instead of being angry, Yuri now felt guilty. He had the luxury of working in a small guild where he only had to take care of himself and a few others. He would never be forced to decide between sacrificing a battalion or letting the lower quarter starve. He'd stomped up here on his high horse, ready to berate Flynn for making a decision he himself would never have to consider.

That wasn't to say he was alright with what Flynn had done. He understood it, and he didn't think Flynn was a bad person for making that choice, but he couldn't say it sat well with him. There had to have been another way, or he should at least have waited longer to see if another solution would present itself. There was no point shouting at Flynn, though, because he couldn't possibly tell him anything Flynn didn't already feel.

"You've got to own this, Flynn."

Flynn raised his sunken eyes curiously.

"There's no going back. You did what you had to, and now all you can do is work your damned hardest to make this empire even better. Those knights gave their lives to save Zaphias, so you've got to make that worthwhile and make Zaphias the greatest city it could possibly be. Don't ever forget the knights who died thanks to your orders, because their families sure as hell aren't going to forget you."

A hint of determination eked into his weary eyes and he slowly nodded. "That's all I can do."

"Don't worry about turning into Alexei. Be true to yourself, and, I don't know, make decisions based on 'would Yuri kick my ass if I told him about this?' If the answer is yes, don't do it." Back in Mantaic, Flynn had confronted him about his actions. They'd argued at the time and he'd blown Flynn off, but he couldn't deny that those words had gotten to him. If he hadn't been concerned with whether Flynn was right about him, he might have slid further down the slope and become something he regretted. Flynn had kept him from straying from his path then, so it was only fair he offered the same guidance now.

"Thinking a little highly of yourself there."

Yuri smirked. "I've tried to convince you that following my advice is always a good idea since we were five."

Flynn rested his chin on folded hands. "Then why is it following your advice on where to build a fort ended with both of us covered in poison ivy rashes?"

Yuri waved his hand. "That one doesn't count."

Flynn sighed. "I have a Council meeting in half an hour to give a report on the battle. I wrote the report yesterday, but I really don't know if I feel up to attending."

"Yeah, you look awful. Did you get any sleep last night?"

"I passed out at some point in a drunken stupor. Does that count?"

"I don't think so."

"Thought not." He groaned and rubbed his head. "Ugh, why did I think drinking would make me feel better? It just made me more miserable and now I have a headache that gets worse with bright light."

"A hangover will do that to you," Yuri said with a nod, speaking from experience. "You should probably go, though."

Flynn buried his face in his hands. "I'm a dishevelled mess. I can't face the Council."

"If you don't give an official report stating your exact reasons for your actions, rumours and lies are going to spread like wildfire. You need to give this report before half the city thinks you're a blood-crazed maniac."

Flynn groaned again. "Damn, you're right. Guess I should at least take a shower…"

"Come on, let's go."

Yuri got up and grabbed Flynn's arm, dragging him to his feet. Flynn wrapped his arm around Yuri's shoulders and let Yuri guide him to his rooms. In Flynn's suite, Yuri led him to the bathroom and then turned on the shower.

"I'm going to go get you some coffee. Think you can handle it ok in here?"

Flynn gave him an annoyed look. "Yes, Yuri, I can handle showering on my own."

"Alright. Don't try to drown yourself or anything, ok?"

Yuri left him in peace and then left to find the kitchen. This whole situation was just _wrong_. It was supposed to be that Yuri did the dirty work and took care of things that Flynn's clean hands couldn't reach, like executing bastards who slipped through the cracks. He'd set himself up to be the one to take care of unpleasant tasks so that Flynn could remain the pure leader this empire needed. Flynn wasn't supposed to make the questionably moral choices himself, but what could Yuri have done? He couldn't have gotten rid of that horde of monsters even if he'd been here, and he couldn't give orders to the knights in Flynn's place.

He dragged his feet as he entered the kitchen to find coffee. Life was even more complicated than he'd given it credit for.

Fifteen minutes later, he was back in Flynn apartment. The living room was damp since the door to the bathroom was open, letting out the steam. Flynn had cleared a porthole in the fog on the mirror with his towel, which was now around his waist as he carefully shaved. His muscles were as lethargic as the razor was sharp, which gave shaving an exciting risk of possible throat-slitting.

"I got you some coffee," Yuri called, setting it on the kitchen table.

"Thanks."

Yuri went to Flynn's bedroom and pulled open his wardrobe to find his formal uniform. He laid everything out on Flynn's bed, and then went back to the living room to wait on the couch. A few minutes later, Flynn left the bathroom and dragged himself to his bedroom. There were a few thumps, clinks, and swishes of fabric, and then Flynn emerged in his uniform, clean faced and hair combed (at least as combed as he could get it).

"There you go," Yuri said as Flynn fiddled with his belt. "Ready to go?"

Flynn grabbed the coffee, took a long sip, and then let out a breath. "Ready as I ever will be."

"You don't look like a sick dog who crawled into a knight uniform anymore, at least."

Flynn took another gulp of coffee and frowned at Yuri. "Gee, thanks."

Yuri hopped up and led Flynn to the door. With his hand on Flynn's shoulder, he said, "Just be honest. Make it clear that you didn't have any other option and that you regret all the lives lost. Don't let anyone convince you there was an obvious third option, _and_ don't let anyone tell you not to waste time grieving a few lost knights."

Flynn nodded. "Thanks, Yuri."

He smiled, but it wasn't the carefree Flynn smile that Yuri was used to. It was tired, and there was pain behind his eyes. Yuri wanted to say something, but couldn't put it into words, so he remained silent as Flynn strode away to his meeting.

With Flynn taken care of, Yuri sighed and began the trip home. He wanted to believe this would be the last time he would have to find Flynn like this, but he knew it wouldn't be. Being the commandant meant that he'd be forced to make lots of difficult decisions. Some may not be as drastic as this, but every time Flynn was forced to compromise his ideals to prevent a larger tragedy, it would wear him down. No wonder so many commandants became corrupt; after a while, it must be easier to stop caring about innocent lives than to feel the weight of your decisions every time you looked in a mirror.

That would never happen to Flynn. Yuri was certain that he was stronger than that, even if it did mean carrying that heavy burden for the rest of his life. They'd wanted to change the world, but Yuri was only know realizing what it might cost them.


End file.
